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Teens Who Savagely Attacked Well-Known DOGE Staffer Avoid Jail Time

Tech mogul and former DOGE chief Elon Musk expressed his disgust with the lenient sentence in an X post. “This was a racist verdict by a racist judge,” Musk said of Judge Kendra Briggs, who is black. “The simple test to apply is if the races has been reversed, the White kids would be in prison. Equal justice for all!”

Not a surprise, seems pretty typical for D.C.
I’m not seeing the race angle here. I thought the complaint was cities like DC were soft on all crime.

What evidence is there this judge has in the past issued harsher sentences against white defendants?
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Heating up down under

It's real. But the level of fearmongering over it is unwarranted.
That's an assertion - based on what evidence?

The first head of the IPCC was a Christian. There are Christian climatologists.

EG: Dr Katherine Hayhoe is an amazing example of a Christian excelling in science and environmental care. Many “Greenie crusaders” think she is awesome. The UN gave her one of their highest awards - “United Nations Champion of the Earth!” Server Busy

She says there are solid biblical reasons for Christians to get stuck into climate activism even as a Christian longs for the new world. (One day. We don’t know when.) As a result, we have a responsibility to hand over the world to our kids better than the way we inherited it. Indeed - this is standard Reformation thinking - and goes back to John Calvin.

This is a great episode of what is one of the best Christian podcasts on the planet.
The host is Australian Dr John Dickson - who now lives in Wheaton College USA.
I wish more American Christians would listen to this podcast - and especially this episode.
Good Earth


I'm sure it does and eventually they'll be replaced by the Green Industry dictators.
If Russia is still a dictatorship after their oil and gas are gone - maybe. But that's no reflection on wind and solar energy itself.

However, the 'black gold' has propped up many what I would consider to be illegitimate forms of government, start many wars, and oppress many people.

Most of those people are probably on death's doorstep out of the 67 million who die per year.
Absolutely incorrect. Yes - it's tricky.
But the epidemiological studies try to eliminate for the noise.
It's what medicine and science are all about.

Why do you jump to conclusions? Like why do hate vanilla ice cream? Why do you love pond scum? See what I mean?
No - I do not. You are avoiding valid questions about the POLLUTING, CORRUPTING, and VANISHING nature of fossil fuels. Let's run those 3 by renewables:-

POLLUTING? Where renewables do have some environmental footprint as they are mined, at least the air will be vastly cleaner.

CORRUPTING? Wind and solar operate best by Overbuilding them and connecting them up across vast continent-wide super-grids, which will encourage co-operation between nations.

VANISHING: They're renewable. They're not vanishing.

Like I already said, as a matter of progress the Green Industry will eventually replace a lot of things.
Excellent - I totally agree!

The issue is all of the unwarranted fearmongering in the meantime.
You assert and assert. But what data have you contributed?

Every time I discuss this with someone from MAGA who vaguely hedges their bets by asserting "Oh it's real - except it's not - they're exaggerating" - they make vague assertions, get tired, and run away.

Are you humble enough to ask yourself, what if you're wrong? What if peer-reviewed science in this case shows a real and present danger RIGHT NOW to the world, one that is gradually snowballing into something even more potentially harmful for our children, and disastrous for our grandchildren?

It makes people frantic to the point where they become totally immersed in Climate Panic. That's not healthy.
Neither is suffocating to death with pollution particulate late stage emphysema, or being a Ukrainian killed by Russian drones and missiles and tanks and armies all funded by gas and oil, or being an African farmer starving to death because the rains failed, because the measurable extra energy in the atmosphere moved the rainfall away from his country.

Climate change IS tricky. The raw principles are quite basic - we KNOW CO2 and methane and other gases trap heat, and by how much. But where that heat goes and what it is going to do? That's tricky, and deals with the vastly complex interactions between 2 major chaotic systems - the oceans and atmosphere!

But huge, broad, general patterns are emerging - and they are NOT good!

But there are still surprises. Sometimes it seems, in little corners of the world, there are areas where human models are wrong! The oceans off the East coast of Australia surprised the climatologists recently. There's something tricky going on with the water circulation and behaviour down in Antarctica at the moment.

In other words - the climate experts ARE telling us when they don't know certain things or were caught off guard by new trends! If you're listening. If you are open to paying attention to what they say.

Generally, though? Climate change IS a nightmare. We are changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere by doubling one of its key heat trapping gases - a gas that lasts hundreds to thousands of years.

How is that in any way a "conservative" action?
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Malevolent vs. benevolent dispositions and conservative political ideology in the Trump era

Not sure what emotional responses have to do with reasoned evaluation of morals or claims of absolutist moral authority.
You're right. Absolutely nothing at all. I thought it didn't need to be explained that we're not talking about emotional responses to circumstances or knee jerk fight-or-flight reactions. This is meant to be about reasonable, considered approaches as to how we, individually, decide what is morally acceptable and what isn't.
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Teens Who Savagely Attacked Well-Known DOGE Staffer Avoid Jail Time

Tech mogul and former DOGE chief Elon Musk expressed his disgust with the lenient sentence in an X post. “This was a racist verdict by a racist judge,” Musk said of Judge Kendra Briggs, who is black. “The simple test to apply is if the races has been reversed, the White kids would be in prison. Equal justice for all!”

Not a surprise, seems pretty typical for D.C.
Musk certainly showed his racist side. Being 15 makes a big difference but it does seem rather lenient.
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Are the Jews Israel, or is the church Israel? Or does it depend on the context of the passage?

There are two Israel's

The First is the physical descendants of Jacob by blood - sometimes a Nation, sometimes not.

The Second is the the spiritual descendants of Abraham 'The Father of all who have faith' which includes the Body of Christ and all believers back to Adam, saved by the Blood of the Cross.

As Paul said regarding the Jews "they are not all Israel who are Israel."
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Missing pages from one's bible

The Catholic Church regards the Orthodox canon of Scripture with deep respect, acknowledging its ancient roots, liturgical richness, and fidelity to apostolic tradition. While the Catholic canon was definitively affirmed at the Council of Trent and includes certain deuterocanonical books not universally recognised in the same way by all Orthodox Churches, the Catholic Church appreciates the shared reverence for the inspired texts and the profound spiritual heritage preserved in the Orthodox biblical tradition. This mutual esteem fosters ecumenical dialogue and highlights the common theological foundation that both Churches uphold in their veneration of the Word of God.
Are you missing pages or not?
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Missing pages from one's bible

To which I pointed out the the Patriarch of Alexandria is also called "Pope", and has been for longer than the Patriarch of Rome, so the expression, "solely reserved for the Bishop of Rome" was inaccurate as the title was also being used in Alexandria prior to the schism. One can argue that since the schism, within the Catholic Church it is solely reserved for the Bishop of Rome, but that isn't what was claimed. That is all I was pointing out. I was not claiming that Alexandria also has a "papacy".

And that should have been the end of it, but some people like to pick fights.

No one else in the Church claims the title in either the Eastern Orthodox Church or the Oriental Orthodox Church, however, both the Coptic and the Greek Patriarchs of Alexandria are termed "Pope" in their respective Churches.
Thank you for the clarification.
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Another look at the moon landing.

Plus the quarantining of the astronauts, because they may have unknown pathogens that could have been brought back from the Moon.
Tardigrades can survive in the vacuum of space, and they are much more complex organisms than bacteria and viruses, so it was not an unreasonable precaution.
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Missing pages from one's bible

The initial point had been made that the office of the (Catholic) Papacy did not exist prior to the fourth century. More accurately, the post stated, "It was not until the late 4th Century that the word was reserved solely for the Bishop of Rome, which then became the papacy."
To which I pointed out the the Patriarch of Alexandria is also called "Pope", and has been for longer than the Patriarch of Rome, so the expression, "solely reserved for the Bishop of Rome" was inaccurate as the title was also being used in Alexandria prior to the schism. One can argue that since the schism, within the Catholic Church it is solely reserved for the Bishop of Rome, but that isn't what was claimed. That is all I was pointing out. I was not claiming that Alexandria also has a "papacy".
Your rejoinder to this was "The title of Pope belonged first to the Patriarch of Alexandria and continues to be used today."
And that should have been the end of it, but some people like to pick fights.
I guess my question to you is whether or not the title of Pope as applied to the Patriarch of Alexandria was, and is, solely for him alone?
No one else in the Church claims the title in either the Eastern Orthodox Church or the Oriental Orthodox Church, however, both the Coptic and the Greek Patriarchs of Alexandria are termed "Pope" in their respective Churches.
  • Winner
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Trump’s Name Chanted in Israel AND Gaza After Peace Deal: ‘Nobel Prize to Trump!’

Here's what needs to happen:

Cash rewards for Hamas members captured dead or alive, like we used to do here in the American Southwest. If they're too afraid to catch them, offer a smaller, discreet reward for anonymous snitches.
Perhaps we could get the israeli military to attack Hamas with full force?
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Stranger Things

Why Young Men Are Falling Even Further Behind

For as long as society has existed, it's always been a given that men had an advantage by simply just being male. But in the past 5 years or so, things have changed, and changed fast. These days many young men find themselves falling further behind in a surprisingly diverse set of ways. In this episode we explore why this is happening and what some solutions could be.
According to that video, the situation changed at least 25 years ago.

I am an African-American Boomer who was in the vanguard of integration right after the Civil Rights Act. I remember very well what it was like to be in a newly integrated classroom in the South with white classmates and white teachers. I distinctly felt the air of "you don't belong here." My first white teacher, for instance, moved me and another black child to the corner of the room farthest from her and ignored us for the rest of the year. What I see to day is young white boys being ignored that same way by their female teachers, while the girls are noticed, praised, encouraged, and empowered. I believe that white boys today are responding to the same marginalization that black boys have always been subjected to.

I also think there are similarities in the responses of black boys marginalized by race and white boys marginalized by gender. Some are clear similarities, such as higher drop out rates, lower rates of college attendance, and less success in the job market. Black youth in the inner cities are in contact with certain specific factors such as gangs that direct them toward common crime, but white boys are (in my opinion) more likely to suffer in isolation....which in extremes can result in the sudden violence of a school shooting. But I think both cases of these boys "crashing out" are different only because black boys in the inner cities and white boys in the suburbs have different directions to go under the same impetus.
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Malevolent vs. benevolent dispositions and conservative political ideology in the Trump era

And what exactly constitutes "due consideration" within the deciding process according to your epistemological estimation?
You know...thinking about choices and choosing the one you like best.

These flowery, pseudo intellectual word salad responses are getting you nowhere.
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Ezra Klein: Charlie Kirk was practicing politics the right way

I don't understand why it troubles y'all so much to admit that the man was smart and successful.
He started his own PAC when he was 18 and look at it now.
He was good at what he did. You can't admit it without putting an asterisk by it
Charlie Kirk was very smart and successful and he was quite good at what he did.

What he did was not debate, though. Not in any formal sense. He was a showman and I know that gets a bad connotation but that’s what he did. His content wasn’t meant to persuade, it was preaching to the already agreeing choir.
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Fitness/Diet Accountability Thread

I'd like to join in.

My doctor has me doing physical therapy exercises daily and an additional 15 minutes of exercise each night, slowly increasing.

I'm supposed to be following anti-inflammatory diet and low-fodmap.

I want to loose weight, but I also need to increase muscle tone and muscle mass. Increases have to happen carefully due to my condition.

I am physically limited due to myopathy, which is sometimes worse than others. I have pay attention to how I'm feeling and make decisions about what to do based on that as it changes.
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Ezra Klein: Charlie Kirk was practicing politics the right way

So he did what he was good at, there's nothing wrong with that
'Mate, that's not debate. That's over rehearsed, soap box, lowest common denominator, low quality, mundane rhetoric'

'Ah, but's he's very good at it'.

Well...OK then.
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Don Trump Tilts at Windmills: Rescinds All Offshore Wind Energy Areas in the US; current leases up for review

And yet both Germany and the US has less coal generation now than a decade ago. Coal is energy dense and has a low cost per BTU as compared to natural gas. Natural gas is on the pricey side, and once was mostly used for peaking stations for that reason and because the turbines can be spun up fairly quickly. It also doesn't have as much pollution issues as coal.

Energy density isn't something we cooked up. it's a real thing and it has an impact.

The most energy dense source of electricity isn't fossil fuels, it's a pellet of fuel grade uranium as big as the end of your thumb. It's the rough equivalent of 1 US ton of coal (call it 0.907 metric tonnes). Think of the amount of CO2 that would cut. 1 US ton of coal should produce about 3.67 US tons of CO2. So if the priority is reducing CO2 from electricity production, nuclear is the way to go. Somehow I doubt the critics of nuclear power are doing the bidding of fossil fuel producing companies.
You gloss over how much of an investment it is to create the infrastructure to extract that high energy density. When the cost for new power plants, decomissioning them a few decades down the line and the operating costs in the meantime (including repairs, upgrades and waste disposal) are factored in, nuclear power is far more expensive than renewables.
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Faith/Works

God is a Judge. And if anyone thinks they will pass through the Judge to Heaven based on anything other than the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, or they add anything to it, they will go to hell.

Christ alone, by grace alone, by faith alone
In Psalms 119:29-30, he wanted to put false ways far from him, for God to be gracious to him by teaching him to obey His law, and he chose the way of faith by setting it before him, so this has always been the one and only way of salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone. In Titus 2:14, Jesus gave himself to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own possession who are zealous for doing good works, so the way to believe in what Jesus accomplished through the cross is by becoming zealous for doing good works in obedience to God's law (Acts 21:20).
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